


Culture Shock

by cyphernaut



Series: Culture Shock [1]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Discipline, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:55:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24298456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyphernaut/pseuds/cyphernaut
Summary: Daniel's position as a civilian contractor had always seemed an advantage, a way to skirt around the regulations that hampered most of his teammates. He never realized that it could also be a liability.Or...Daniel can't follow orders, and the Air Force isn't sure what to do with him.
Relationships: Daniel Jackson & Jack O'Neill
Series: Culture Shock [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1774372
Comments: 29
Kudos: 42





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first SG1 fic, similar in tone to some of my Sherlock fics. I also just realized I have a half-finished Sherlock fic, so I'll get onto that. Oops!

Daniel buried himself in his books. It had been the first moment of peace he’d gotten since they’d come back through the stargate, with Jack keeping up his tirade even through the requisite post-mission medical checks. Daniel had managed to escape the infirmary first, and had absconded to his lab, where he put off writing up his report. He was going to have plenty of time to finish it later, since Jack had apparently “grounded” him from missions for the foreseeable future. He’d balked at the term, but Jack had just turned his criticisms to Daniel’s lack of facility with military terminology and culture. Daniel had tuned him out as Janet took his blood pressure. It had been slightly high.

He looked over his notes on the writing system they’d found and then stood to scan his shelves for something on the Cypro-Minoan syllabary. He was just reaching up to grab it when the door to his lab crashed open.

“We’re not done talking about this, Daniel,” Jack resumed his earlier lecture. “You almost got yourself killed. And God knows what happened to that planet.”

“I know.” It had been terrifying, the quick brush of a hand across the stone carvings suddenly setting off a chain reaction of shifting ground beneath their feet, rising monoliths, and an ominous rumble that Daniel didn’t want to speculate on. He’d frantically started to decipher what he’d triggered, trying to reverse the process, but Jack had bodily hauled him away from the device, throwing him through the gate after Teal’c and Sam.

“You _know_? That’s it?” Jack stared at him, incredulity steeped in outrage. “You touched an alien artifact that I specifically told you not to touch, almost killing all of us, and all you have to say is that you _know_?”

Daniel set the book down on his desk and took a breath. It had been a close call, but not markedly different from any of their other brushes with death, and in the end they’d all come out unscathed. “I was just trying to read it. There was no way for me to know that was going to happen.”

“Exactly. There was no way for any of us to know what was going to happen, which is why I told you _not to touch it_!”

“I’m sorry!” he snapped, irritated that Jack wouldn’t let it go, and still on edge from the earlier adrenaline rush.

“Yeah? Sorry enough that you kept messing with it after I told you to get through the gate?”

“I was trying to fix it!” He didn’t mention that there was a chance that he _could_ have fixed it, if Jack hadn’t dragged him through the gate.

“I don’t care what you were trying to do. When I tell you to get through the gate, you walk through the goddamn gate. You don’t screw around with alien technology that’s about to blow up in your face.”

“If you’d given me a few more seconds-”

“Stop it. I don’t want to hear it. I give you an order, and you follow the order. That’s the way chain of command works.”

“I’m not military, Jack. You can’t expect me-”

“Daniel, stop talking. That’s the order you’re getting right now: Close your mouth.”

Daniel took a breath, trying to keep his own cool in the face of Jack’s barely contained fury. “I’m trying to have a reasonable-”

“ _You. Will. Close. Your. Mouth._ ” Jack’s voice boomed through the lab, the command tone snapping Daniel’s teeth shut before he even registered the words. Jack continued, only slightly mollified by Daniel’s immediate compliance. “Now sit your insubordinate ass down in that chair.”

Daniel sat where Jack pointed. He wasn’t afraid of Jack, but he also knew it was pointless to try to argue with him when he got this riled up. “I am done arguing with you about this. The next time I tell you to get through the gate, you drop what you’re doing and get through the gate. Is that clear?”

Movement from the doorway caught Daniel’s eye. Two airmen maintained eyes front as they passed the lab, but their backs snapped straighter at Jack’s rebuke. Daniel barely kept a lid on his own resentment by pressing his lips together and looking at the notes in front him.

“I asked you a question, Daniel. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Jack, I still understand English.” Even with his eyes on his notes, Daniel could feel Jack’s gaze sharpen, cutting through the solace Daniel normally found in his work and sending his sympathetic nervous system into overdrive. He leaned into the sensation and softly muttered, “As well as about thirty other languages you don’t, which is why I’m here.”

Silence fell upon the room as Jack’s blazing fury turned to ice. Daniel’s heartbeat quickened at the two measured steps Jack took toward him, every line of his body vibrating with suppressed violence. “If I come back, and you are anywhere else but in that chair, in that exact spot, your next stop will be a holding cell. And I’m not going to bother asking you if you understand, because with your giant thirty-language brain, I’m sure you’ve got it covered.”

With that, Jack spun on his heels and strode out of the room, and Daniel stayed exactly where he was.

* * *

The phone rang, and Daniel was halfway up to answer it before he fell back into his chair, mentally kicking himself for feeling so compelled to stay where Jack had put him. He awkwardly dragged the chair over to the table, and answered.

“Dr. Jackson, General Hammond has asked that you report to his office immediately.”

“I’m…” He didn’t know how to explain his current predicament without it seeming ridiculous. “I’m kind of in the middle of something.”

The extended silence on the other end of the line told him exactly what the airman thought of his explanation. “I understand, sir. General Hammond has asked that you report to his office immediately.”

“Right, I got that. I just, uh…” He racked his brain for a plausible explanation that wasn’t a complete fabrication.

“If it would help, sir, some SF’s could come by to escort you.”

“No!” he yelped. That was the last thing he needed. “I’ll be right there.”

He made his way to Hammond’s office, where Jack was already seated across from the general. Daniel stopped just inside the door, feeling like he was marching into his execution chamber. Or at least the principal’s office.

“Sit down, son.” General Hammond looked up from the paperwork in front him and indicated the empty chair next to Jack’s. Daniel sat, giving the colonel a wide berth. “Colonel O’Neill has just given me a very troubling report on your inability to follow orders while on off-world missions.”

Daniel looked to Jack, whose stony countenance had yet to react to the interaction. “I... okay.”

“It’s not ‘okay,’ Daniel,” Jack started, before the general cut him off with a wave of his hand.

“The success of these missions and the safety of those on them depends on the ability of everyone to respect military protocol.”

“Yes, sir, I understand that.”

“Son, I have a stack of paper right here that suggests you don’t. Now, you’ve been given a lot of latitude when it comes to your participation in this program.”

Resentment over the fact that Jack had written a small treatise on Daniel’s shortcomings rose from his chest and tightened around the base of his skull. He’d thought they’d talked things out each time, but apparently Jack had been documenting every dispute in preparation to use against him in the future. Daniel bit his lip and forced out a heavy breath as he processed his thoughts. Before he could formulate a coherent response, Jack pointed an disapproving finger at him.

“See? That right there. That little huff instead of a ‘Yes, sir.’ That’s latitude.”

“Sorry,” Daniel ground out.

“I’m sorry, _sir_ ,” Jack corrected him, and Daniel’s frustration reached a breaking point.

“I’m not military, Jack!” He felt betrayed. Betrayed that Jack hadn’t trusted him to fix the device. Betrayed that Jack was coming down on him so hard so suddenly. Betrayed that Jack was bringing all this to Hammond.

“Alright.” General Hammond put up a calming hand, and they settled back into their chairs. “Dr. Jackson, we understand that you are a civilian, but you _are_ working for the Air Force, and you’re going out in the field where we expect the chain of command to be respected. If you can’t do that, then you can’t be out in the field.”

“I do respect the chain of command. I just...” He trailed off, unsure how to explain the magnitude of the discoveries that they were making with each trip, how they could revolutionize their understanding of earlier cultures. Daniel was on the cusp of deciphering Linear A. “I’m not a soldier. My job is different, and it has its own code of behavior. I can’t abdicate my responsibility to act ethically just because I’m ordered to.”

“I see.” The general frowned at the report in front of him. “Dr. Jackson, did you feel ethically obligated to touch this alien device?”

“No,” Daniel faltered under the general’s placid stare. “But once we triggered it, I couldn’t just let it blow up the planet.”

“Yeah, maybe aliens built a device to help travellers blow up their planet,” Jack interjected with a caustic nod. “Or maybe, just _maybe_ , they built something that would kill the travellers - that’d be me and you, by the way - and leave the rest of the planet safe.”

Daniel considered the possibility. “Yeah, I guess that makes more sense.”

“Ya think?”

Before Daniel knew it, he’d forgotten where he was, and his world had narrowed to Jack’s smug, sarcastic face. “I didn’t know that at the time!”

“You knew I told you not to touch it.”

“Maybe, ‘Look with your eyes, not with your hands,’ didn’t feel like such a serious order in the moment!”

“Gentlemen!” General Hammond cut through the exchange, and Daniel was chagrined to realize they’d had an audience. “We have a problem here. Dr Jackson, right now neither the colonel nor I feel comfortable putting you out in the field. Since counseling you on this issue has clearly been ineffective, we’re left with two options: to reassign you to work strictly on-base, with no off-world missions, or to terminate your contract with the stargate program completely.”

The reality of the words started to sink in. He would no longer be part of SG-1. No field work, no first-contact, no Jack, Sam, and Teal’c. No team. He boxed up every emotion he might have about the situation and forced a calm demeanor. “Okay, I’ll go pack my stuff.”

The world constricted around him, and Daniel stood, barely registering Jack’s voice as he followed the tight tunnel of his vision out of the general’s office.

“Oh, for crying out loud, Daniel. Daniel!”

* * *

Daniel had no idea which things were his and which belonged to the stargate program. They probably all belonged to the stargate program. He started shoving the books that he didn’t want to leave behind into a rough pile on one side of his desk.

“Daniel, stop it.”

The artifacts were obviously government property, but Daniel still shuffled through them as he ignored Jack’s presence in the doorway.

“Since I didn’t see a resignation letter, I’m going to assume I can still order you around. Put the alien doohickey down and talk to me.”

“It’s a mehen board,” Daniel muttered, setting the disk down. “I can turn in a resignation letter by the end of the day.”

“Or - and here’s an idea - you could _not_ resign. You don’t have to write a letter. I don’t have to get used to a new scientist. It’s a win-win.”

“Did you miss the part where I was fired from my job?”

“Yeah, I did. Because you weren’t ‘fired’. General Hammond was making a point that he doesn’t have a lot of options for disciplining civilian contractors other than firing them.”

The logical extension of that statement was clearly that Daniel was fired, but he didn’t have the energy to wend through a maze of conversation. “What’s your point, Jack?”

“My point is that the Air Force has plenty of ways to keep people working and miserable at the same time, but none of them apply to you.” Jack ticked possibilities on his fingers. “Forfeiture of pay: a violation of labor law; restriction: a violation of civil liberties; reduction in rank: well, turns out there’s no protocol for busting a PhD down to a masters degree.”

The image of Jack and General Hammond brainstorming ways to punish him solidified his resolve. “Okay, then it sounds like I’m fired, so let me pack my stuff.”

“Daniel, I want you to stay on this team, but you have a huge problem with authority, and an even bigger problem with my authority over you. You’re pissed off at even the suggestion of me punishing you for breach of discipline.” Jack paused, as if waiting for a response, but Daniel refused to engage him. “Everyone else on the team has gone through military training that’s drilled it into our heads that we have to follow orders. You haven’t, and it makes you a danger to yourself and the rest of the team.”

“Okay, Jack. I got it. I’m dangerous because you can’t punish me. Point taken.”

“No, you don’t ‘got it’!” Jack took a deep breath, and appeared to settle down before continuing. “Daniel, can you look me in the eye and tell me that you believe that you should follow my orders on missions, whether or not you think they’re right?”

Daniel couldn’t. Jack knew Daniel couldn’t.

“Can you even admit that I’m in a position of authority over you?”

“You’re the leader of our team,” he wavered.

“That’s not what I asked. Can you admit that I’m in a position of authority over you?”

Daniel sighed. “Jack…”

“Now, can you use your genius anthropologist brain to see how this is a problem in our military culture?”

Daniel fiddled with a stone from the mehen board while Jack waited him out. “Yeah. Yeah, I got it.”

“Okay,” Jack held his hands out to his sides in question. “What do I do?”

“Well,” Daniel pressed his lips together as he distanced himself from the topic. “I guess, in military culture, you use your positional power to reinforce the social hierarchy.”

“See? I knew there was a reason I kept you around. And how would I do that?”

Daniel rattled off his answer without letting the words stick too long in his brain. “Punishment, while ostensibly used to deter particular behaviors, more often functions as a dominance display that enforces the social hierarchy.”

“So it sounds like you’re saying I should punish you.”

“No, I’m saying it would be the culturally appropriate response.”

“You wanna hear my culturally appropriate proposal?”

Daniel really didn’t. “Okay.”

Jack held up a finger. “Three weeks restriction to the base and your apartment. You go straight between the two and don’t stop anywhere else.”

“What about the grocery store? How am I supposed to eat?”

“If those instructions are too complicated, we can make it just the base.”

Daniel sighed. “No, I got it.”

Jack held up a second finger. “For the first two weeks, you’re on alternate assignment.”

“What does that mean? Like peeling potatoes? Cutting grass with nail clippers?” When Jack just shrugged, Daniel pressed on. “What about my actual work? I’m already behind!”

“And now you’re going to be two weeks behinder.”

“I can’t take that much time off work! I’ve got a pile of stuff to do. Can’t I just pay a fine or something? Do the pay forfeiture thing?”

“No and no,” Jack shook his head with a cynical chuckle. “Because every time I give an order from then on out, you’ll be calculating exactly how much money it’s worth for you to obey it.”

Daniel considered the scenario. It did have a ‘buying indulgences’ sort of feel to it. “Isn’t there anything else?”

“This is usually not a negotiation, Danny-boy,” Jack told him, then sighed. “Okay, a week in a holding cell.”

“Could I bring my work with me?”

“No, you can’t bring your work with you to _jail_!”

“You said the Air Force had ways to keep people working. What about all that boot camp stuff?”

“Oh, you want to march up and down the halls all day shouting ‘I am a dumbass who touches everything he sees’?”

He did not. “What else?”

“Sorry, there’s not a catalog that you get to pick your punishment out of.” He ran his hands over his face, then clenched his fists in frustration. “I’m running out of ideas here. You want me to beat you?”

“Would I be able to go back to work right after?”

Jack’s mouth opened and closed several times before it managed to produce any sound. “Wh-? Daniel, I can’t _beat_ you.”

“You can’t lock me up for a week, or make me scrub the floors with a toothbrush, either.” Daniel wasn’t sure where his argument was coming from, or where it was going. Jack considered him for a few more moments, then turned away and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Would it convince you to follow orders?”

The question froze the air in the room around him, as well as that in his lungs. Daniel hadn’t expected Jack to agree. The prospect of Jack actually hitting him was suddenly, pressingly real, and his mind shrank from it. “I don’t-” He’d been beaten twice on Abydos, and it had prompted a definite shift in his relationship with Kasuf. He considered the implications. “Maybe. Probably?”

Jack still wasn’t looking at him. Instead he studied a point on Daniel’s bookshelves. “That isn’t exactly part of the UCMJ.”

“But it happens?”

“It has happened.” Jack finally turned back to look at him. “Is that what you want?”

Daniel already felt smaller at the possibility, but maybe that was the point. “I don’t know. I mean, what exactly…”

As Daniel trailed off, Jack went back to massaging between his eyebrows, his discomfort palpable. Daniel let the question dissipate. “Can I think about it?”

“Yeah,” Jack sighed. “Just get back to me by the end of the day.”


	2. Chapter 2

Sam didn’t look up from the computer when Daniel entered the lab and approached her workstation.

“Hey, Sam, can I ask you something odd?”

“Sure.” Her fingers continued to clatter across the keyboard as she did something algorithmic that Daniel didn’t bother trying to understand.

“Have you ever heard of physical punishment in the Air Force?”

She glanced up at him quickly, without breaking focus on the data in front of her. “You mean like pushups?”

“No…” He searched his brain for another way to dance around the subject, but none came. “I mean like, uh, flogging?”

“ _Flogging_?” He suddenly had her full attention, and he regretted his choice of words.

“Or beating. Whipping. That sort of...physical…” he trailed off, his eyes wandering toward a microscope that wasn’t pinning him with the same cautious stare that Sam was.

“Why are you asking me this?”

“Jack made it sound like it wasn’t completely unheard of.”

“I guess I’ve _heard_ of it, sort of.” 

“So, what happens? Is it like _Starship Troopers_?” At her blank stare, he elaborated. “They tied him up and put a thing in his mouth, then whipped his back.”

“Yeah, I saw the movie. I still don’t understand why you’re asking about this.”

Daniel wasn’t sure either. It was starting to look like a bad idea. He scrambled to explain himself. “Jack was, uh, not happy that I almost blew us all up today.”

“And he said he was going to _flog_ you?!” Sam looked baffled by the turn of the conversation, and Daniel realized that there was no possibility of extricating himself.

“Well, no, not exactly.” He thought back to what Jack had actually said. “He asked me if I thought it might get me to follow orders.”

“Okay.”

“So you think it’s okay,” he confirmed.

“No, I think it’s weird! I just don’t know what to say.”

Daniel had hoped the conversation would reassure him, that maybe Sam could talk him through some obscure process that Daniel wasn’t privy to. “You said you’d heard of it happening.”

Sam looked around, as if checking that the lab was still empty. “Okay, so years ago, there was this guy on base, and everyone thought he was going to get discharged or take a 15 or something, and there was a rumor that he took some sort of…whatever...to avoid getting it on his record.” The scenario was eerily similar to his with Jack, and Daniel turned the information over in his head, unaware that Sam was gauging his reaction until her eyes widened. “Wait, is this something that you’re actually thinking about _doing_?!"

Daniel’s squint and pursed lips as he tried to think of how to answer were apparently confirmation enough. Sam shook her head at him.

“Daniel, I saw him after. He was in a lot of pain. You can’t-” Whatever she saw in Daniel’s face compelled her to reassess. She blinked a few times as she pursued a private chain of thought. “Colonel O'Neill would never hurt you like that.”

“So you think I should do it?”

“No! I think you should just follow orders.”

It was too late for that, but even if it hadn’t been, Daniel was fairly certain he wouldn’t be able to do it. The real mystery was how Sam managed. “You’re so much smarter than Jack is. You _know_ he’s wrong sometimes. How can you just ignore that?”

“Daniel, the chain of command isn’t about who’s the smartest. The colonel’s in charge because he has a track record of successfully leading missions. Besides, Jack's smart. He’s just…folksy.”

Her words were imminently reasonable, and intellectually Daniel could accept them, but at a visceral level he knew he wasn't convinced.

“Listen, Daniel, just give it some time to blow over. He just needs a day or two to cool off.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” She was definitely not right. “Thanks, Sam.”

“Sure.” She smiled up at him, sweet and sincere, as if all their problems had been packaged and tied up with a nice bow.

He realized he was just stalling for time.

* * *

Jack was sitting in his office, his desk half covered with a pile of reports. He looked up at Daniel’s knock on the open door. Daniel entered, stomach souring more with each step. He told himself that he wasn’t nervous, that it wouldn’t be worse than anything else that they’d endured in the normal course of their work. When Jack didn’t offer him any sort of greeting, Daniel dove right in.

“Okay, I’ll do it.”

“Okay.” Jack dropped his pen and stood, and the bottom dropped out of Daniel’s stomach.

“Now?!”

“What, you wanted to RSVP first?” Jack crossed the small room, and Daniel followed the movements carefully. Each step expressed a grim determination that Daniel did not share. Finally, Jack reached the door and shut it. “I don’t want this hanging over our heads.”

The solid click of the deadbolt echoed in Daniel’s head, and he reminded himself that he didn’t have to do this. Then Jack turned toward him, face solemn, and Daniel stumbled back with a sharp intake of breath. Jack frowned at the reaction but didn't say anything.

“Okay, bend over and put your hands on the seat of that chair.”

That wasn’t like _Starship Troopers_ at all. It was more like a school paddling. The banality made it worse, and Daniel stood frozen in passive disobedience, watching Jack unbuckle his belt in slow motion.

“Daniel.” Jack indicated the chair with a tilt of his head, once the belt was doubled over in his hand.

His breath was coming in quick pants, and Daniel started to feel light-headed. “Can’t I just kneel down on the floor and you whip my back?”

“No.” Jack looked confused, and a little horrified at the suggestion, but Daniel pushed on.

“I can take my shirt off so it’s just my tee-shirt.”

“This is a bad idea.” Jack made to put the belt back on. “I’m just going to suspend you from duty for a week.”

“No, I’ll do it. I’ll do it.”

He rushed to lay his palms on the seat of the chair, crinkling his nose at the shift of his glasses. They fell further and he lifted a hand to poke them back into place. His finger was shaking, and he pressed it back into the chair to still it.

Jack was moving, but Daniel couldn’t bring himself to look. “Okay, I’m going to start. Try to stay still and keep your hands on the chair.”

Daniel closed his eyes. When the first blow fell, he rocked forward and heard the sharp crack before his brain registered the pain. He fought his body’s instinct to stand, and realized that he had no idea how many times Jack was going to hit him. His glasses had slid down again, and he was reaching up to push them back when the second blow came. His hand snapped down to keep himself from toppling over, and the glasses fell further, until they were barely dangling from his face.

“Jack, wait,” he started to panic. “My glasses, my glasses!”

When the belt stilled, Daniel took the opportunity to stand up and right his glasses, shoving them firmly against the bridge of his nose.

“Here, give them to me,” Jack said, holding out his free hand, and Daniel did so, his gaze fixed on Jack's fingertips. Jack set the glasses on the desk. “Okay, get back down.”

“Jack…” he pleaded softly. The blurred room had him off kilter and even more vulnerable.

“We’re not done yet. Put your hands back on the chair.”

He turned his face away from the command and tried not to think of anything. Suddenly Jack’s hand was on his upper arm, and he closed his eyes and willed his mind away. When he was tugged over, his abdomen pressed against Jack’s raised thigh, he came to himself again. “Wait, how many?”

“Come on, let’s get this over with.”

The belt began to fall again, but Jack had lost his leverage, and it landed with a dull thud. Without the sharp pain to distract him, Daniel was mired in the idea that he’d gone from judicial whipping to school paddling to being turned over Jack’s knee, his body tucked against Jack’s torso with a firm arm holding him in place. He closed his eyes to the thought of it, and the belt came down on him several more times. Even as he clung to the conviction that it didn’t actually hurt, the toes of his boots were digging into the floor in protest, and after a few more moments, his hand flew back to protect himself. Jack caught it before Daniel realized what he’d done.

“Two more.”

The last two came, and Daniel gasped. Jack hadn’t lost his leverage; he’d just been going easy on him. Daniel kicked at the sting of it and struggled against Jack’s grip on his right wrist. Jack gave him a few moments to settle, then released him, waiting for Daniel to get his feet beneath him before removing his boot from the seat where he’d propped up his leg. Without Jack to steady himself against, Daniel listed a bit, then caught the chair for balance.

Jack began to replace his belt. “All right, that’s done.”

It didn't feel done to Daniel. He felt suspended in the moment. He clutched the back of the chair and stared at a blurry point on the wall behind Jack. He was starting to understand why Sha’re could never bring herself to look at his face when she thought he was angry at her.

“You still have three weeks restriction, then we can talk about getting you back onto missions.”

Jack’s voice seemed to go blurry, too, and Daniel blinked back the pressure stinging the edges of his eyes. The maelstrom of thoughts in his head was impossible to grab on to. He felt like he should be mad at Jack, but he wasn’t. It was all too much.

“Daniel?” Jack asked, but Daniel barely heard him through the haze of his own inchoate thoughts and feelings. “Daniel.”

The words floated far above him, with Daniel stuck in the well of his own nebulous ruminations, until two warm hands framed the side of his face, and he looked up to see Jack staring at him with affectionate reproof. “Spacemonkey.”

Daniel choked on something in his throat. He really, really wanted to hate Jack. The hands left his face, and something within him sank at the loss.

“What’s the matter?” Jack asked, and Daniel shook his head, a tight back and forth that communicated everything he didn’t understand.

“Come here.” Jack put his arms around him, exactly what Daniel hadn’t wanted to want. He leaned helplessly into the embrace and tried not to feel comforted by it. “Level with me, Daniel. How badly did I mess up here?”

Daniel shook his head again, but Jack just stayed there, holding him tight as Daniel’s breath stuttered at his shoulder.

“Can you say something, so I know you can still talk?”

Opening his mouth, Daniel only managed a shuddering breath. He pushed back from Jack and tried to calm his mind enough to get something coherent out, but it wasn’t fast enough for Jack, whose brow furrowed at Daniel’s struggle. “Okay, hold on just a minute. I need to call and cancel a meeting.”

“No, you can go to your meeting, it’s fine,” Daniel said, hating the reedy timbre of his voice.

“I’m pretty sure it’s not.” 

“Jack, I’m fine. I just need a minute.” 

Jack studied him for a few moments before coming to a decision. “Okay, you can stay in here as long as you want.”

After giving Daniel’s shoulder a final squeeze, Jack left the office, leaving Daniel to stew in everything that had just happened.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... This took forever. I rewrote it a bunch of times, and I'm still not sure what I think. Thanks for reading!

Whether from inertia or a genuine desire to be there, Daniel took Jack at his word, and stayed in the office long after the colonel's departure. He poked through Jack’s things, shamelessly invading the man’s privacy, then settled down in a chair and wrapped his arms around himself, aiming for a few minutes before he returned to his work.

After an hour, he had to admit to himself that he was waiting for Jack to come back. 

“Oh, hey.” Jack sounded surprised when he finally walked through the door, and Daniel twisted around to see him.

“Hi.”

They stared at each other for a moment, and Daniel realized he wasn’t sure what he’d been waiting for.

Jack recovered from the social awkwardness quickly and crossed over to his side of the desk. “The meeting came with homework, so…” He tossed a file onto the top of a haphazard pile and sat down.

Daniel considered offering to leave, but he didn’t want to, and Jack _had_ said he could stay as long as he wanted. So he sat while Jack ignored him in favor of completing paperwork.

With his mind abnormally still, Daniel found himself at home in a space that wasn’t his own. The feeling conjured a vague memory of lying on his back in another office, his feet propped up against the side of the desk as he ate Bugles off the tips of his fingers while waiting out the completion of some adult task that his childhood mind hadn’t bothered to register.

The files slowly dwindled, and when there was nothing left, Jack finally set his pen down and looked up at Daniel. 

“So, to what do I owe your delightful presence in my office?” he asked, jarring Daniel from the sense of belonging he’d allowed to envelop him.

“I can go if you want.”

“I didn’t say that. I asked you what you wanted to talk about.”

Daniel looked down at his arms, which had folded themselves across his stomach. “Uh, no. You made a snarky comment about me being here.”

“Okay, I’m sorry.” He held his palms out in exaggerated invitation. “What would you like to talk about, Daniel?”

There was an ineffable something that he wanted from Jack. He searched himself for what it was but came back empty. It wasn’t snark, though. “You’re still being sarcastic.”

“Daniel, I’m sorry. I’m not good at this. Please talk to me.” Daniel looked away at the request, but the knowledge of what he was waiting for started to creep up on him. He wanted Jack to continue to cajole him to speak, maybe come over to Daniel’s side of the desk and sit next to him. Reassure him that they would be okay. Comfort him as he had earlier. Daniel shoved the thoughts back down.

“I don’t-” Without what he was really thinking, Daniel was left with nothing. “Nevermind, I'm just going to go home.”

Jack stood. “Hold up. Let me drive you.”

* * *

The snow banks stood starkly against the rest of the night, rushing past them as they took the short drive back to Colorado Springs. Daniel kept his face turned toward the window. He’d offered up a perfunctory protest at leaving his car behind, but allowed himself to be led to Jack’s truck.

“Do you really need to stop by the grocery store?” Jack asked him as they pulled off the highway, and Daniel recognized it for what it was, Jack testing the waters of Daniel’s willingness to talk to him.

“No, I’m okay.”

Under the guise of checking the mirrors, Jack glanced at him one more time before diving in. “I told General Hammond that you and I worked it out, and that you’re not resigning.”

“Okay.”

“Did we?”

“What?”

“Did we work it out?”

“I guess.”

They were approaching Daniel’s neighborhood, and he pulled his bag from the footwell to his lap.

“Daniel, if I’d-” He turned onto Daniel’s street, then pulled over next to his building. “You didn’t react the way I expected you to.”

That wasn’t a surprise. Daniel hadn’t reacted the way _Daniel_ had expected to. He’d hope to grit through the punishment then throw himself back into work. He might have been able to do that, too, if Jack had been a little more callous about the entire thing, had just told him to man up and get over it. It would have made it easier to write him off, but he’d been so worried afterward, and Daniel was forced to admit that Jack had his best interests at heart the whole time. 

“Okay,” Daniel acknowledged, unbuckling his seatbelt and hugging his bag to his chest.

“I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning.”

Daniel played with the door handle, staring at the flickering glint as it caught the reflection of a streetlight. “Actually, I think I’m going to call in sick tomorrow.”

“Yeah, okay. Well. Have a good night.”

“Yeah.” 

He made his escape.

* * *

Daniel spent the next day doing whatever the hell he wanted, which mostly consisted of wrapping himself in a blanket, eating junk, and avoiding any form of self-reflection. When a knock sounded at his door he wasn’t surprised. He’d expected Jack to check up on him. He opened the door to see Janet on the other side.

“House call!” She cheerfully held up her medical bag.

“Um, why?” he asked, moving aside to let her in. She entered the apartment and scanned her surroundings in a way that felt more military than medical. The pizza box and empty beer bottles didn’t escape her notice.

“Daniel, are you playing hooky?” she asked, a small smile playing at her lips.

“No.” He followed her into the apartment, where she found her way to the kitchen and washed her hands. He threw a stray paper towel into the trash in a mild effort to wrangle the disarray. “Did Jack ask you to check up on me?”

“No, is there a reason Jack might want me to check up on you?”

His brain was muddled from the beers, and he peered carefully at her as she turned back to raise her eyebrows in expectation of an answer.

“I- wait, so why are you here?”

She steered him toward the couch. “You had a brush with death on an alien planet, called in sick the next morning, then didn’t answer the phone for three hours.”

“Oh, sorry, I thought it was Jack.”

Janel tilted her head at the information, then pulled the pen light from her bag, waiting for him to take off his glasses before shining it in his eyes. “What are your symptoms?”

“Huh?” he asked, flinching at the glare.

“Your symptoms? From being sick today?”

“Uh…I don’t have any?”

She put the light back in her bag and closed it, the medical check apparently cut short. “I can confirm you’re not fit for duty today, but that’s because you’ve been drinking.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

“So you want to tell me what’s going on? Why you thought the colonel might want me to check up on you? Why Sam actually _did_ want me to check up on you?”

“Not really.”

She eyed him carefully. “Do it anyway.”

“It’s not a big deal.” He tried to leave it at that, but Janet was having none of it, staring at him with her particular brand of gentle expectation. After a passable attempt of waiting her out, Daniel broke. “Jack and I got in an argument yesterday, and he said I could take a sick day today.”

“Because?”

“Because I was upset.”

“About?”

“About the argument.”

“Daniel, if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’m going to have to take my concerns to the general.”

“Okay, fine.” He considered how much of a lie he might be able to get away with. “Jack...kind of…hit...me.”

“Hit you as in punched you?”

“No, uh, hit me with a...a belt?”

To her credit, Dr. Frasier’s face remained impassive as she took in the news. “Okay, Daniel, it sounds like you’re disclosing an assault-” 

“I’m not!”

Unfazed by his outburst, she continued. “Do you have any injuries I should know about?”

He recognized the line of inquiry from years ago, careful questions that always led in the same direction. “Janet, it’s really not like that.”

“Okay, what’s it like?”

“It’s something we agreed to do. I wanted to do it.”

She tried to wait him out again, but he just sat there. He had more practice at it than she probably realized, and the stakes were higher. After a full minute, she shifted tactics. “I’m going to put you on medical leave for the next few days.”

“No!” Daniel balked. “The whole point was so that I could stay on the team.”

“You’re still on the team. It’s just a little time off while all of this gets sorted out.”

“No! Janet, please.” He saw the situation spiraling before his eyes, and he hastened to contain it. “Okay, Jack said he was going to suspend me for a week, and we agreed to this instead.”

“What?” Thoughts played out on her face as she began to put everything together. “So you let him hit you over a week’s pay?”

Thrown by the mention of money, he faltered. “No, they were still going to have to pay me. I have a civilian contract.”

“So you chose getting hit with a belt over a week of _paid vacation_?”

When she put it that way, it sounded ridiculous. “I didn’t want to get behind on my work.”

“Daniel.” She’d apparently been perfecting her ‘mom’ stare with Cassie, because after just a split second of it, Daniel had lowered his eyes and hunched his shoulders. “What is going on?”

“Nothing, I just don’t want to get behind.” He picked at the seam of the couch cushion. “Besides, he didn’t hit me that hard.”

“He shouldn’t be hitting you at all.”

It was so absolute, and not at all in line with Daniel’s experience or expertise. “Actually, it would be normal in a lot of cultures-”

“But not in _your_ culture,” she cut him off with a wave of her hand. “Regardless of what is normal, this is clearly not something that’s working for you.”

Biting his lip, he considered the statement. “But, it kind of did.”

“What do you mean?”

“Jack was right. I didn’t really feel like I needed to follow his orders.” He shrugged. “And now, I kind of...do.”

“Don’t you think there is a way to convince you of that without hitting you?”

Daniel shrugged again. They hadn’t thought of anything else. Janet looked to the ceiling and let an exasperated breath escape her lips.

“As your friend, I think you need to get a social support network outside of your work. Develop other interests that are not the stargate program.”

“No. I don’t.”

“Daniel.” The slight tilt of her head let him know that he sounded as churlish to her as he did to himself. He was beyond caring.

“No! I don’t want any other interests, and I don’t want another group of people. I had my parents, and they died, then my foster family, and then that fell through, and then my research group, and they dropped me, and then Sha’re, and she’s dead. And now SG-1, and I’m not going to start over again with another group of people. I _can’t_.”

“Okay, okay.” She rested her forehead in the palm of her hand. “Have you thought about talking to someone about all this?”

“You mean go to a shrink and talk about how an alien parasite possessed my wife, and now I have to travel through wormholes trying to find her super-powered son?”

“I mean talk about how you’ve lost a lot of people you care about.”

The sincerity took the wind from his sails. Without a sarcastic comment to rail against, Daniel eased into the suggestion. “I’ll think about it.”

“Okay, and in the meantime, please do not agree to allow people to hit you. That’s my official medical advice for you.”

Daniel nodded slightly, but he knew that if he had to make the decision again, he’d do the same thing.

“All right.” She moved on to the next order of business. “Is there anything that I can do to cheer you up?”

* * *

Daniel and Janet sat in her car eating their noodles. With Cassie working on some group project at a friend’s house, Janet had jumped at a chance to have dinner with an adult, even if it meant takeout in the base parking lot. She also hadn’t asked a lot of questions about _why_ dinner needed to be takeout in a parking lot, which gratified Daniel.

He was scraping shredded cucumber from the side of the bowl when his phone rang. Jack's number appeared on the screen, and he thought seriously about letting it go to voicemail. At a curious glance from Janet, he flipped open the phone.

“Hi J-”

“Where. Are you.” It was more of an accusation than a question, but Daniel jumped to answer it, his stomach dropping at the tone.

“I’m at the base. Janet drove me back to get my car.”

“Hi, Colonel,” Janet added cheerfully, politely ignoring the panic in Daniel’s voice.

“Get back here,” Jack ordered him, and Daniel glanced over to Janet, who was pointedly focused on her dinner.

“What do you mean, are you-?”

“Yes, I’m at your apartment. Get back here. You have fifteen minutes.”

“Yeah, I’m on my way.” He clicked the phone shut and turned back to Janet, who saved him from any explanation.

“I should probably go pick up Cassie, anyway.”

Daniel let himself out of the car, then turned back before shutting the door. “Oh, um, Janet?”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe, don’t mention to Jack that we stopped for food.”

* * *

“I want my twenty minutes back.” Jack greeted him when he reached his apartment. “I’ve been outside your door waiting for you for twenty minutes, and I want you to figure out how to get me my twenty minutes back.”

“Yeah, okay.” Daniel reached past him to unlock the door.

“Also, I brought hot wings and beer.”

They walked in, and Jack dropped the food on the table while Daniel got the bottle opener from the kitchen. They moved silently and seamlessly around each other, doing what little work was needed to heat the wings back up and get everything set up for Daniel’s third meal in as many hours.

Hunger long since satisfied, Daniel picked at his food and tried not to notice when Jack repeatedly geared up to speak, just to close his mouth without a sound. When he finally produced a full sentence, it was almost a relief, as much as Daniel didn’t want to have the conversation.

“Daniel, I don’t want to rehash this, but I screwed up, and I need to know how bad it is.”

“You didn’t screw up.”

“So you missed work today because…?”

Daniel stared at the celery stick that he was slowly dismantling with his fork. The weight of Jack’s attention rested heavily on him, and he folded even further into his empty task. Silence stretched between them, broken only by a soft hiss as Jack popped the cap off his second bottle of beer.

“Did I ever tell you about the first time I quit smoking?” Taking a pull from his drink, Jack waited for Daniel to shake his head. “In training, we couldn’t just smoke whenever we wanted to. So one day, I got caught sneaking a cigarette, and they made me finish out the whole pack, two at a time, with a bucket and blanket over my head.”

“Oh, my God.”

“No, it gets better. So, by the end, I was crying and puking all over myself, and they made all of us get out there and do PT for an hour. Me with just puke and snot all over everything. It took me the rest of the night to get cleaned up, then training the next day.”

“That was legal?”

He blew air through his teeth. “Probably not, but there was a war going on, and that’s what they thought they needed to do. It wasn’t the most twisted story to come out of that place.”

Daniel took in the story, and then Jack’s face, open and anxious. He wanted to tell Jack that he forgave him and just get it over with, but Jack hadn’t done anything wrong. Or if he had, Daniel didn’t understand it.

“Yesterday, it didn’t feel like some weird military thing. It felt like…” He couldn’t bring himself to say the words. “It was different from what I expected. It didn’t feel like that before, with Kasuf or-”

“Kasuf? He-?” After a few seconds, Jack registered what Daniel was saying. “But you two seemed so close.”

“Yeah, we were. He wouldn’t have done it if we weren’t. I mean-” He stumbled over the explanation. “It was a normal thing there. That’s why I thought it wouldn’t be a big deal with you.”

There was no way Jack could understand. He held the same slightly bemused expression everyone did when Daniel explained what it had been like on Abydos. Daniel tried again, eyes darting around as if the answers could be found in the recesses of his apartment. “And with my foster dad, not the ones who tried to adopt me, but the first house, he would double up his belt like you, but then he’d just grab me and start hitting me with it wherever he could, you know, harder than you. Or throw me into walls, or whatever, and it wasn’t a big deal. I just kind of toughed it out.”

“Daniel, I’m so sorry.” 

He looked more than sorry. He looked stricken. 

Daniel shook his head at Jack's response. “It was a long time ago.”

“If I had known, I _never_ would have-” 

“It’s okay! It wasn’t that.” Jack’s reaction was exactly why he didn’t talk about his childhood. People never understood, and it colored the way they saw everything he did and said. He picked at the label of his beer as Jack waited for his explanation. “I didn’t think you were going to hurt me. And I knew you weren’t going to hit me that hard. You just looked so serious, and I didn’t like you looking at me like that. And I wanted to be mad, but you were being so reasonable. And then you were so nice after.”

The words kept tumbling out, whether from the alcohol or a genuine desire for self-revelation.

“I guess it was just hard because you were still nice the whole time, even when, you know, you were going through with it. And I know I get on your nerves sometimes, and we argue, but this wasn’t like that. It was just you being really serious about me...not...not...”

As he trailed off, Jack took over. “Not doing what you were supposed to.”

“Yeah.” Daniel forced himself to face the succinct explanation. He had been overwhelmed by the weight of Jack’s disapproval.

Jack must have seen it, too, because he ran a hand over his face and looked out toward the darkened windows. “I’m sorry I went to General Hammond about this. I should have worked it out between us first.”

“I guess you tried.”

Jack shook his head, following the memory. “When that planet was falling apart around us, and I turned back and saw you weren’t coming, I thought ‘this kid is actually trying to kill himself, and he’s going to take me with him.’ I was so frustrated and...powerless.”

“You could have just left,” he pointed out, setting Jack up to tell him exactly what he wanted to hear.

“I was frustrated with _myself_ , that no matter how hard I try, you are constantly on the verge of getting yourself killed. You know how many times I’ve thought you were dead? You can’t keep doing this to me. My hair is literally turning gray. See all this?” He pointed to his temples. “This is from you, Daniel.”

The thought was oddly comforting.

“Listen, the point is that I didn’t know what to do, I went to General Hammond, it escalated, I tried to reel it back in, and it blew up in my face.”

“But that’s what I’m trying to say, Jack. I don’t think it did.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, obviously, I didn’t like it, but that’s kind of the point. And now…” Daniel searched inside himself. “Now, I think I got the point that I have to listen to you.”

“So…” Jack cautiously took in Daniel’s explanation and demeanor. “It worked?”

“Yeah, I guess.” He turned the memory over in his head. “It was just a very clear physical manifestation of the fact that you were not happy with what I had done, in a way that I would not want you to be not happy with me.”

Drowning in the wave of words, Jack asked, “And you’re okay with it?”

“Yeah, well, no. But yeah.” He stopped himself before Jack’s head exploded. “I wasn’t okay with it when it was happening, but I’m okay with the fact that happened, and that it is something that could happen.”

“Okay,” Jack seemed to be coming to terms with the situation. “And you’re absolutely sure you’re not, uh, traumatized?”

“No! I needed some time to think about everything, but when I talked to Janet about it-”

“What?! You told Janet?!” Jack shot up in his chair, face frozen in alarm. “Daniel, she’s going to skin me alive.”

“She actually seemed really understanding.”

“Yeah, to you, with your...your…” He waved a hand in Daniel’s general direction. “Your cute little puppy eyes and ‘butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth’ face. She's going to freaking kill me.”

“Sorry,” he faltered. “She kept asking really specific questions. I think she might have already known from Sam.”

Jack choked on his beer. “ _Carter_ knows? Are you kidding me? Listen, Daniel, I know it’s the 90’s, and it’s not PC to say, but women are different. They’re not going to get something like this.”

“They weren’t exactly receptive, but I don’t think they fundamentally-”

“Oh, come on! You literally have a PhD in human cultures,” Jack cried, as if Daniel were intentionally misreading the situation. He took a breath, and then leaned in to explain. “You tell a woman something, and she’ll remember it forever. Even when you don’t want her to. But men, talking doesn’t always stick with us. We gotta get shaken up a little sometimes.”

Daniel frowned and quickly inventoried his knowledge of human cultures. “I don’t think that’s a real thing. Also, it sounds like it might be a Title VII violation.”

“Gee, Daniel, if you’re going to think like that, why not go straight for the assault charge?” He turned away and muttered, “They’re going to remember this forever.”

Daniel turned to poking at his chicken rather than engage with Jack’s mild tirade.

“Oh, and speaking of you getting me in trouble, General Hammond thinks everything is my fault, so thanks for that.”

“You’re welcome?” Daniel hazarded, and Jack narrowed his eyes at him.

“‘Apparently, ‘orders need to sound like orders, not like jokes.’” He downed the rest of his beer. “He also told me I shouldn’t try to out-sass my subordinates.”

“But you’re so good at it,” Daniel deadpanned.

“I know, right? But apparently my leadership style is facilitating your...” He pointed his empty bottle at Daniel, “shenanigans.”

“My shenanigans?”

“Yeah, and that’s another thing. It’s ‘My shenanigans, _sir_.’ Because the disrespectful tone is actually the gateway drug to mutiny and sedition. So, I’m going to need to get a ‘Yes, sir’ out of you every once in a while.”

Daniel scoffed. “Does that mean you're going to start calling me ‘Dr. Jackson’ instead of ‘Danny-boy’ or ‘Spacemonkey’?”

“See? That’s the kind of backchat I should not be tolerating.”

They settled into the familiarity of Jack’s simulated outrage, Daniel even managing a few bites of food. It was just shy of comfortable, and Daniel didn’t miss the quick assessing glances Jack was throwing his way.

“So will the Air Force have the privilege of hosting your shenanigans tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I’ll be there.”

“Good.” The remaining tension disappeared from Jack’s shoulders, and he pulled the last piece of chicken onto his plate. Daniel was almost ready to move on, but he knew he owed Jack a little more.

“Listen, I’m sorry I didn’t go through the gate when you told me to. I should have listened to you. And not just because you were actually probably right.” He took a breath and gritted on, “Because I should be listening to you anyway, especially when you tell me to do something safety-related on an off-world mission.”

Whatever reaction Daniel had been expecting to the apology, it wasn’t the poorly suppressed laughter that Jack choked out. “That is a very specific set of circumstances in which you intend to follow orders.”

“Jack!” While the apology did admittedly have a lot of qualifiers, it was more than Daniel had offered before. “I do intend to follow orders! But you can't expect me to blindly follow every single one without thinking about it. I’m-”

“An insubordinate smarty-pants who gets tunnel vision every time he sees some squiggly lines on a rock?”

He’d been intending to say ‘not military,’ but he was inclined to tolerate Jack’s interpretation, at least when it came accompanied with the affectionate smirk Jack was shooting his way. “My _job_ is to interpret the artifacts that we find on missions and tell you what they mean.”

“And to obey the rare order that meets your stringent requirements, as long as the squiggly lines don’t tell you otherwise,” Jack needled him.

“I don’t choose facts. I can’t make up translations that agree with you.”

“Yeah, you’re really good with words, aren’t you, Danny-boy? You could argue circles around me any day. But that doesn’t make you right.” He wagged a scolding finger at Daniel’s face.

“Actually, yes, the fact that I can justify my theories with evidence and logic _does_ make them more likely to be correct.”

“See? Great with words. Still wrong.” He reached for a third beer. “And still an insubordinate smarty-pants.”

* * *

By the second week of restriction, Daniel was starting to chafe at the bit. He’d thrown himself into a backlog of translations, which had helped. He didn’t even normally like going out, but without the option, he found his mind turning to all of the freedoms that were closed off to him. The worst part of it all was that he was fairly sure that Jack wasn’t tracking him, and that he could do what he wanted without consequence, but he couldn’t bring himself to flout the restrictions. Besides, his style was more flagrant defiance than sneakiness.

He was wrapping up a report for SG-9 when Jack appeared in his doorway.

“Hey, we’re going off-world. Briefing in fifteen.”

“I thought I was ‘grounded’.”

“And I thought you’d learned not to argue with me. This day’s just full of surprises,” Jack returned with mock excitement, then disappeared before Daniel could formulate a retort.

The briefing provided a little more explanation. The video from P5R-487 showed enough cuneiform to keep Daniel busy for months. He squinted at the screen.

“That mean anything to you?” Jack asked.

“Um, maybe if I got a closer look?”

Jack’s skeptical glare didn’t fool Daniel, and by the end of the meeting, he was officially on the mission, sharing a celebratory glance with Carter before Jack pulled him aside.

“Just so we’re clear: I’m in command of the mission, and you’re going to follow my orders.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Jack, I got it.”

“All of them. Even the really stupid ones.”

“Yes, I will follow your stupid orders.”

“ _Especially_ the really stupid ones.”

“Jack.” Daniel raised his eyebrows, done with the game.

“Daniel...” Jack returned carefully. “I’m still not hearing a ‘Yes, sir.’”

“And...I’m going back to my lab. I'll see you in the gate room.” Daniel spun on his heels and walked away, the sound of Jack's cheerful voice ringing behind him.

“You know, brushing me off like that could get you a year in prison, if you got court-martialed for it.”

“I’m. Not. Military. Jack!” he declared as he continued down the corridor.

“That’s my Spacemonkey.”


End file.
